However, times have definitely changed. Last year I wrote about how the role of RSS was changing. By most accounts, the use of feed readers peaked in 2008 at about 11% and has been declining since. The broader public found feed readers too complicated and not useful enough for regular consumption.

But at the same time, RSS usage has grown in very big ways. Currently millios of people are reading RSS feeds without realizing they’re doing so. Countless Twitter accounts and Facebook Pages are being fed via RSS and are serving them much like a feed reader was supposed to, sending people near-instant updates and letting them read all of their content in one place.

This shift is changing what RSS is and means, turning it away from being a means to read a site and into the engine that enables sharing and content discovery.

This, in turn, is impacting how webmasters and bloggers use and interact with RSS and is also shifting the ways in content creators protect their works and how users interact with it.

Here are just five examples of how that is happening right now.

1. Fewer, If Any, RSS Buttons

If you go to TechCrunch, you won’t find a single RSS button on their home page. Since their recent redesign, the RSS link has been moved to the footer, three little letters at the bottom of their site.

Meanwhile, their Facebook “Like” box is prominently displayed in their sidebar and Twitter sharing buttons line the entire site. Webmasters have been steadily downplaying RSS subscription in favor of social networking.

RSS just doesn’t have the “cool” factor any more and it’s been moved to a behind-the-scenes player in content distribution. This is why many webmasters, myself included, have been slowly scaling back RSS subscription efforts in lieu of other, more popular alternatives.

2. Better RSS Control

RSS by its nature has historically been completely open. Anyone could be accessing it. A visitor to an RSS feed could be single user looking at it in Outlook or it could be Google Reader preparing to send it to hundreds of subscribers. This opened the door for scrapers and others who wanted to misuse the content in the feed as everyone had to be let in.

However, the number of distribution channels is dropping. This makes it possible to limit who has access to the feed and only let in permitted clients. Though you’ve always been able to block scrapers, this would change the system from one where everyone has access until they’re booted to one where only the permitted users are let in at all.

This could stop scrapers before they start, or at least force them to pull from other channels to get the content.

3. Greater Tolerance of Truncated Feeds

Five years ago, having a truncated feed was a sure-fire way to turn away potential subscribers. The issue was such a hot-button topic that a petition was circulated around against partial feeds and it gained a bit of traction.

However, with the new subscription channels, people are more used to getting a preview and clicking through. They are more about content discovery than content consumption, making partial feeds roughly as useful as full ones.

4. Loss of Platform Control

While the ability to control access and the ability to greater openness to the use of partial feeds gives webmasters more control, it also comes with drawbacks.

Previously, if a single RSS reader or site using your content did something you didn’t like you could always block them, file a takedown notice or take other action. However, if Facebook decides to display RSS feeds in an in appropriate or controversial way, there’s not much one can do as that is a large percentage of the audience.

The good news is that Facebook and Twitter both don’t integrate RSS directly and, instead, use third party apps to do it. However, that’s no guarantee in and of itself as decisions by these two can impact and even cut off how RSS flows through their systems.

In short, even though you can always switch apps, Facebook and Twitter are still very much in control.

5. Losing Sight of What RSS Even Is

With RSS disappearing from sites and fewer bloggers even using them, it seems likely that even fewer people will be aware of RSS in just a few years’ time. Even those who know of it and use it somewhat now will, with time, probably forget about it as both the name RSS as well as the famous icons will be all-but-meaningless to end users.

This also means that fewer webmasters will be thinking about it and fewer will be weighing the issues and decisions that come with having an RSS feed on your site.

This may, in turn, open the doors for others with less-than-pure intentions to exploit the naivete of webmasters, who are unaware of how they are gaining access to their site’s content.

Bottom Line

All in all, the changing role of RSS is a mixed bag for webmasters and content creators. While it will make it easier to block and reduce the impact of traditional scrapers, the loss of control over the platform and lack of front-of-mind understanding of what RSS is and how it works still opens up some serious vulnerabilities.

However, this is a transition that is happening slowly and will continue to do so for some time. Most likely we still have several more transition years before we truly reach the point with RSS where it is meaningless to users.

That being said, with so many major blog eschewing or downplaying RSS, it may be that the transition is happening much faster than once thought possible. It may simply be that the simplicity and large presence of Facebook, Twitter and other social networks are just overpowering to the traditional RSS model and we may be mourning RSS’ demise as a destination sooner rather than later.

Either way though, RSS will live on, behind the scenes, driving social media and marketing for content creators of all stripes. That much is definitely certain.

Blogging, microblogging and social networking have given more people than ever the ability to set up their own corner of the Web. By lowering the time and knowledge barriers to setting up a page for themselves, anyone can do it in just a few moments.

While this has mostly been a power for good, giving a voice to content creators who otherwise wouldn’t have a means to reach a large audience, it has also had its share of drawbacks. Though this site has well-documented how this growth has caused a rise in plagiarism and deliberate content misuse, it is also causing a rise in “friendly” infringement, bloggers and social networking users infringing copyright without meaning any harm.

These infringements are tricky to deal with. While spammers and plagiarists can be handled brutally without any issues, treating these cases in a harsh manner is rarely the correct way to solve the problem. Not only does it open the door for new drama, but can actually backfire and hurt legitimate sharing of your work.

So how should you handle these cases? Here’s a quick look at my suggestions.

The Problem

The problem appears to be the most apparent with images or shorter text works. Many people create blogs or profiles for sharing content they find interesting. While this is great when they link to works they like, it becomes a problem when they start copying and pasting. There are many blogs, in particular on Tumblr and Posterous, that seem to focus on sharing findings on the Web repurposed in just such a way.

While some of these blogs do a great job of obeying Creative Commons Licenses or, at the very least, providing proper attribution. Many do not. Some simply have a blanket statement saying that the works are not theirs and are owned by the respective copyright holders. Others still just simply label themselves as a blog about things the owner found and make no mention of copyright or ownership at all.

To be clear, these sites can be great if they link to and excerpt content, both creating great blogs and helping content creators out, but the widespread copying and pasting does nothing to support the authors, especially when it comes without attribution. The problem is that the creators of these sites don’t see anything wrong with their blogs, they see it as merely sharing what they like, but they are hurting the authors and artists by competing with them for search engine attention, causing confusion on authorship and doing nothing to drive viewers to the people who made the work.

The most vulnerable content seems to be either photographs/images or short-form text works such as poems. It seems the longer the work or the more effort required to copy it, the less it fits in with these kinds of blogs and the less likely people are to feel good about copying it. Videos are rarely copied as it is easier to embed them legally, but there is a burgeoning use of audio on these sites as music blogs become more popular. Some of the content is embedded legally though much of it is not.

As the recent Blogspot cases have shown, sometimes labels and blog hosts have a hard time telling the difference.

That controversy further highlights why these cases are so tricky to deal with.

Why It’s Tricky

These situations are tricky because, unlike spammers or plagiarists, these sites are not trying to deceive anyone. Though they are infringing the copyright of and hurting original artists, at least in many cases, treating them the same as a spammer creates some serious risks.

There are three risks in approaching these cases to consider:

1. Backlash: Responding too harshly may result in a backlash from the blogger. Though this will not create a problem in most cases, it does create new drama and may result in you being put in a less-than-favorable light. These sites often do a great job making themselves out to be the victim.
2. Fear of Legitimate Reuse: If you earn a reputation for handling reuse too harshly, those who want to make legitimate use of your content, if you allow it, may be frightened off. This can hurt your marketing and other efforts.
3. Burning Bridges: Many of these bloggers can be great promotional engines for content creators. Responding too harshly to misuse can burn some important bridges before they are built. As such, it is important to find ways to encourage legitimate use while remaining at least somewhat cooperative.

In short, when you are dealing with these types of sites, you are going from a world where the sympathies are solely on your side to one where the loyalties are at least slightly more divided. This may or may not be right depending on your viewpoint, but it is the reality of the situation.

How to Handle Them

As is probably becoming clear, you need to approach these cases with a more gentle hand when possible, especially if you allow and encourage reuse of your content with attribution.

Though stern cease and desist letters or DMCA notices may be right for spammers and confirmed plagiarists, it’s a dangerous approach to take in these cases for the reasons above. Instead, I recommend a more personable one.

1. Contact the Blogger Directly: Send a personal letter to the site admin, if possible, and ask them to either attribute the work, excerpt it and/or remove it. This letter doesn’t have to be threatening, but can remind the person that it is a violation of copyright law and not within the bounds of your license. The emphasis, however, should be on being polite and cooperative.
2. Get More Stern: If you don’t get a reply or the response isn’t satisfactory, get more stern if needed. In most cases, this isn’t necessary but give peace a chance to work even if things are off to a rough start.
3. File a Takedown if Needed: That being said, don’t get bogged down. If the person becomes combative or a few emails don’t solve the problem, don’t waste your time and simply file a takedown notice. In my experience, only a tiny fraction of these cases reach this point but if a case does you should not get bogged down with it.

If you try this approach and can honestly say that you gave the person every chance to rectify the situation, then it is unlikely anything too bad will come of it.

If you do your part and try to be the better person, even if things do go sour, you’ll be in a stronger position and the other person is much less likely to create problems down the road.

Bottom Line

In the end, there’s nothing in this that isn’t what one would consider good conflict resolution in general. It’s best, when possible, to try to resolve disputes face-to-face and amicably when possible. Though some injustices need a harsher response, it is usually better for everyone when they can be avoided. Sites and profiles such as these, are cases where avoiding conflict is both possible and, usually, the best approach.

Basically, what you have to do is tailor your response to every situation that you face and drop the idea that one-size-fits-all when it comes to copyright disputes. Not all infringements or infringers are equal, making it important to not use a nuke when a handshake would do just fine.

If you can avoid that, you’ll find yourself with a great deal less copyright drama on your hands and that even people with different copyright views will respect your actions. That, in turn, can go a long way to healing the much deeper divides on the Web and start bringing about real solutions.

photo credit: WallTea

Feeding Google’s insatiable appetite for content is on of the main reasons why infringers scrape and plagiarize content and also one of the biggest reasons why it is important to monitor and, in many cases, defend against it.

The logic is simple enough, the more copies of a work that appear, especially without proper attribution, the less likely that the search engines will give credit to the original source. This can erode search engine performance, especially for smaller and less-established sites or those in highly-competitive fields.

However, duplicate content doesn’t just come from plagiarists and spammers, it also comes from oneself and our own actions when dealing with our own content. Some of it is errors within our site, some of it is in how we approach social networking and social news.

So even as we are enforcing our rights elsewhere, we have to be careful about how we use our own works. Though it might not be infringement, it can certainly have a very negative impact on you and your site and is worth dealing with all the same.

Starting at Home

The first steps to dealing with duplicate content have to start on your own site or blog. Many people don’t realize how many opportunities there are to create duplicate content on your site, even by pure accident.

Consider the following examples from a simple blog:

1. Tag Pages: Tag pages have much of the same content as individual post pages and are generated by most blogging applications.
2. Archive Pages: Monthly, yearly and other archive pages, similar to tag pages, have the same content, or significant portions of it, repeated.
3. Category Pages: As with Archives and Tags, category pages repeat content.
4. Printable Pages: Many themes include printable versions of content pages that can be indexed as duplicates.
5. Comment Pages: Finally, depending on the way comments are set up, a separate page with duplicate content can be created for the version with comments.

Depending on how your blog is set up, it is entirely possible that your article appears six times or more on your site. Google, and other search engines, have to make a decision about which page is the best page and link to it. However, it doesn’t always make the right decision and, in extreme cases, can even decide that the site is spamming and either lower its ranking or remove it.

Thus, it is important to make sure that you keep this duplicate content to a minimum and do your part to let the search engines know what you want them to link to. Here are a few tips:

1. Show Summaries: When possible, only use article summaries and link to the full article. There is no reason for your tag, archive or category pages to display the full text of every entry.
2. Use Robots.txt: Use your robots.txt file to prevent search engines from indexing unneeded pages, such as your printable pages. However, use caution with this method.
3. Use Canonical Tag: Google, Yahoo and Bing all support the canonical tag, which tells search engines which page is the best to include in the index.

In short, be very clear what versions of your content are ideal and try to keep the duplicates to an absolute minimum. Doing so will greatly help search engines tell which page to link to, helping both you provide a better service.

Away from Home

The other problem with self-defeating content use lies away from the home site. Where once an entire person’s presence was in their home page, now it can be scattered all over the Web, including other sites they run and social networking sites that they integrate with and use.

While it may seem like a great idea to post your content on every site you take part in, it can confuse the search engines. You want your efforts in social media to support your search engine strategy, not replace your original site. However, many people unwittingly do exactly that.

Here are a few ways to avoid that:

1. Unique Content for Each Site: If you run multiple sites, you need to have unique content for each. You can use snippets of content to cross promote and certainly link between them, but don’t repost everything. It confuses search engines and readers alike.
2. Use Snippets: When posting your content on other sites, use snippets and link to the original works. The likelihood of this replacing your content, in human or search engine eyes, is slim to none.
3. Require Links: Whenever any content of yours appears on another site, even in snippet form, request links back to the original, specifically SE-friendly ones.

In short, be careful how you use your content. Though linked use isn’t likely to hurt you with the search engines, if you aren’t careful you can really eat up your own site by spreading your work too thin, too carelessly.

Bottom Line

When we think of content reuse, we think of what others do with our work. However, the fact is we are all the biggest reusers of our own work and, perhaps, the most important.

Though we can and should track how others use our content, as well as prevent uses that are against our wishes, it is also important to keep an eye on ourselves and make sure that our actions are working for us and with our strategy.

As with anything else in life, the best place to start your content strategy is by looking at yourself and your own actions, after all, you are your own biggest customer.

Article Updated: See Below On Sunday, the Consumerist posted an article about Facebook’s revised terms of service (TOS) and a very notable change in how Facebook handles your content.

According to the article, Facebook removed a portion of the TOS that allowed users to terminate Facebook’s license to your uploaded work by simply removing it from the site (save archived copies). This kicked off a firestorm of controversy and resulted in not one, but two responses from Facebook clarifying their terms.

However, despite the clarifications, groups on Facebook continue to spring up protest the TOS changes and many users are still concerned about the TOS changes. As such, I wanted to take a few minutes today to talk about the changes and what they means as well as answer some of the more common questions that I’m seeing.

What Happened?

As with most companies, Facebook’s TOS has a clause in it that allows them to update it from time to time. These updates are fairly common as laws and technologies change. It is not uncommon for sites to change their TOS regularly as even trivial changes to the backend can change the rights they have to clear from their users.

As a part of most TOSs, at least for sites that host content at the direction of the user, the site clears the rights they need in the work in order to make their site work. This usually includes some form of non-exclusive copyright license to display, reproduce, edit, etc. Though the exact terms vary from site to site, they usually pertain to the function the site is supposed to serve.

However, typically these terms have some form of termination. You can end the site’s right to use your work by deleting it, closing your account, drafting a letter or taking some other step to opt out. In Facebook’s recent update, they removed that clause. Thus, the collection of rights that they claim to the items you send/upload through them remain with them even if you delete your account, at least within theory.

Facebook, in its TOS, gives itself “irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to (a) use, copy, publish, stream, store, retain, publicly perform or display, transmit, scan, reformat, modify, edit, frame, translate, excerpt, adapt, create derivative works and distribute” the work. It is a very wide swath of rights that many would be right to worry about giving away perpetually.

Previously, one had been able to “expire” the license by simply removing the content. With the change, that element of the license is gone, making it unclear how one would prevent Facebook from legally using the work of its users in a way that they didn’t intend.

Why Did Facebook Do That?

According to Facebook’s second clarification, it was to make the TOS “more consistent with the behavior of the site”. Specifically Facebook cites situations such as messages, wall posts and other activities that take place on the service that may need to survive past when an account is terminated.

For example, according to Facebook, if you send a message to someone and later delete your account, that message should stay in that user’s inbox, Facebook points to email, which follows a very similar formula. In that case, if you delete your Gmail account, the messages you sent to your friends don’t disappear. However, since Facebook is wholly self-contained, it may need to secure those rights to continue storing and displaying those messages.

It is unclear at this time why Facebook didn’t either A) Begin with the current TOS or B) Clarify the new one to only impact the items that needed such preservation. After all, it seems that most users are primarily concerned about their photos, videos and personal information as opposed to their notes, messages, etc.

Is There Anything We Can Do?

According to the TOS, your privacy settings trump everything. If you set your images, videos, etc. to private, Facebook’s use of them will be limited to what you say can be done.

Theoretically, if you wanted to remove your account, you could set your privacy settings as high as possible, limiting everything to being viewed by just your friends, delete all of your friends and then delete your account. Though Facebook may be able to continue displaying those some things to your friends, depending on how it was sent/uploaded, they should not be able to use them publicly elsewhere. Anything you currently have available to the public at large could be used, at least legally, by Facebook even after you depart if you don’t change that setting.

What Does it Mean Realistically?

With TOSs, there is always a certain amount of base-covering involved. Just because a company gives itself the rights to do something in its TOS does not mean it will ever do so or that it is even likely. For example, many sites give themselves the rights to use a work for “promotion” of company. That doesn’t mean that videos uploaded will be turned into commercials.

If you trust Facebook to keep their promise not use your content in any way you don’t want, then it means very little. If you don’t trust Facebook or think you might not trust them in the future, than I would be wary about uploading anything to the site you aren’t comfortable licensing out in broad terms.

However, if you don’t trust Facebook, it might be worthwhile to evaluate if you want to use the service at all.

Do They Own User Works?

There has been a lot of confusion about the difference between a license and a copyright.

When you create a work for yourself, you become the copyright holder in that work. You, for the lack of a better term, “own” it. You do not cease being the copyright holder unless you actively sign over your copyright to it through a copyright transfer.

When you agree to a TOS, such as Facebook’s, you are granting the site a license to your work. You are giving them permission to do certain things with the work, such as display it, modify it, etc. The site needs those rights to do its desired function, share your work.

Giving a license to a work is NOT the same as giving up your copyright. Though licenses can be very broad, such as Facebook’s and even exclusive, which Facebook’s is not, with a license you are still the copyright holder of a work. The only thing that has changed is that the site can now use the work in ways that, without said permission, would be infringements.

For example, with the Facebook TOS, you can still put your images on other sites, sell them, make new works from them, etc. However, you can not try to sue Facebook for infringement because they didn’t pay a license fee or because they are using your work in your gallery. After all, you have given Facebook permission to do all of those things.

To make it clear, Facebook, nor any other TOS that I have seen (save the extremely misguided Fark license), tries to actually grant itself copyright ownership of the work. They are trying give themselves the permissions they need to do their job without fear of legal action. The question is whether they give themselves too many rights, how those rights can be revoked (if possible) and if the rights are exclusive (which they are only on the rarest of occasions).

It’s important to read TOSs carefully for that very reason.

How do other sites behave?

I’ve noticed over the years that sites have become more and more aggressive about giving themselves rights in their TOS. Users, for the most part, haven’t noticed as the TOSs have grown in length and given the various sites new rights. This is especially true of all “user-generated content” sites.

Facebook’s license may be worrisome but it is far from alone and, in general, there has been little public interest in doing anything about it.

This time last year, almost to the day, I started a series called TOS Showdown. Unfortunately, the feedback on it was so overwhelmingly negative that I stopped it after just one entry, namely the comparison of video sharing sites. It was a time-consuming project and didn’t seem to be worth the feedback I got.

However, in light of this “scandal” I am considering bringing it back and would love some ideas/nominations for sites to look at. Social networking ones, blog hosts and podcasting sites are good choices, but are there more?

A Thought on Applications

Facebook adds an extra challenge that hasn’t even been covered in any meaningful way.

Facebook has its own TOS, but so does nearly every single application and service that you use within it. Every time you add an application, whether it is a game, a slide show generator something else, you not only re-agree to Facebook’s TOS but to that application’s TOS.

There are countless apps on Facebook, each with their own terms. Even if Facebook is good natured in how it uses the rights it is granted by its users, who is to say these app creators will be? Also, who is to say that their terms aren’t far worse than anything Facebook has ever put in its TOS?

This is a big part of why I block nearly all app requests and only add one after I’ve had a chance to review it. I strongly encourage everyone to do the same.

Bottom Line

The bottom line though is that Facebook is only doing what it feels it has to in order to protect its legal interest. Does it claim a wide range of rights? Yes. Does it offer a clear way to revoke them? No. If you trust Facebook, this isn’t an issue at all. If you don’t, then it’s probably time to begin thinking about an exit strategy.

Personally, I think the odds of Facebook doing anything too uncouth with a user’s content is slim to none. Facebook simply has too much to lose if users begin to get upset enough to leave.

However, this doesn’t mean that I’m going to start uploading my new novel or masterpiece paintings any time soon (not that either exist). Facebook, as with all such sites, should be reserved for works you don’t care too much about the rights in as you’re going to have to give up a lot just to get the work online through them, even under the best of circumstances.

I urge caution when uploading to Facebook, but then again, I urge caution when uploading anywhere…

Update: Feb. 18

Facebook has announced that it has reverted back to its former TOS. According to a report on TechCrunch, the site is also working with its members, creating a group for its bill of rights, where it hopes to get feedback about future TOS changes.

Obviously this move should do a great deal to calm everyone down, even though Facebook has also promised a “substantial revision” to the TOS in the next version.

photo credit: rindsey

A recent comment by Cybele reminded me of an article I wrote in 2006 entitled “Cease and Desist: A Dying Art“.

The article lamented the cease and desist letter was using its usefulness when dealing with copyright infringement issues, giving way to DMCA and other forms of host contact. At that time, less than a quarter of all my plagiarism cases were handled by direct contact with the alleged infringer.

However, it seems that the trend has continued to work against the cease and desist. Social networking, blogging and spamming have combined to make such direct contact almost impossible. Though I remain a big proponent of direct contact, it has become such a rarity that I can almost not remember the last time I successful worked directly with an infringer directly.

This has me both saddened and deeply worried.

There are ways to fix these issues, but it will take a shift in the Internet itself, something that isn’t likely to happen any time soon.

Cause of Death

In the eight years or so since I have started dealing with plagiarism issues, the Web has changed in drastic ways, many of which make personal contact very difficult to achieve. Specifically, there have been three issues that caused the cease and desist letter to gain dust in most people’s anti-plagiarism arsenal.

1. Social Networking: Though social networking doesn’t create a walled garden of content, meaning that it is possible to detect plagiarism or copyright infringement that takes place on most such sites (Facebook being an exception), they do create a walled garden of contact, making it so that you have to sign up for an account, friend the user and then use their custom messenger to reach out to them. On the most basic level, this is time consuming but it is also very legally dangerous as you have an uncertain paper trail in the event of a dispute.
2. Spam Blogging: Spammers have become some of the most common and most dangerous infringers but they also go to great lengths to keep their identities and contact information hidden. Furthermore, if you do manage to reach them, odds are they will not respond as they have little to gain by complying.
3. Fear of Email Spam: As email spam has taken off, Webmasters have become more cautious about putting their addresses on their sites. Bloggers are routinely advised not to put their email address on their site, obfuscated or not, and most seem to focus on driving people to other means of contact that carry other rewards. Whether it is about adding followers on Twitter, friends on Facebook or buddies on IM, email has fallen out of favor. This is compounded by domain privacy services, which this site does use, false whois information and people opting for hosted blogs instead of their own domain.

As such, a surprisingly small number of sites I approach actually have contact information for Webmaster and, those that do, the information routinely turns out to be incorrect. The few times I have made an earnest effort in recent months have all been thwarted by outdated information or stoic silence.

Why This is Bad

At first glance, the DMCA might seem to be preferable in every way. It is faster, standardized, easy to use and takes only a few moments. Best of all, it is amazingly reliable on most sites.

However, cease and desist letters provide some potentially powerful opportunities. First, they provide the chance to educate users about copyright and encourages infringers to handle the problem themselves. Many times infringement is a mistake, not an act of malice and this helps to provide new information and ensure that the person will not repeat the error.

More importantly though, where a DMCA is nothing but a takedown, a cease and desist provides an opportunity to keep the work up, but with proper licensing. If you use a Creative Commons license, for example, this lets the infringer fix the problems with their use and bring it up to code. This encourages not only good content use, but also linking in general, creating a symbiotic relationship.

It is to everyone’s advantage if copyright holders and infringers can work out their differences face to face, but only if it can be done quickly enough to make it worthwhile. Too much effort, and it becomes easier to file the DMCA and move on.

Exceptions to the Rule

There are a few exceptions to this rule, one of the main ones being Web 2.0 companies that may misuse content as part of their service. Sites such as Shyftr were blasted for their content reuse policies but, in at least some of the cases, have been able to resolve their differences with content creators and rebuild their service to everyone’s benefit.

However, this only works for legitimate companies with a real interest in working with copyright holders. Sites that have no such interest and are just seeking to make money in the gray area between aggregation and spamming will not cooperate.

Those sites, sadly, do demand a DMCA notice or other such action to stop the misuse.

Solutions

Fixing this problem is going to be tricky to say the least. There are two possible ways in which the Web could change to make cease and desist letter more practical again.

First, email could make a comeback as a means of communication. Though we are sending more email than ever, it is clear browsing around the Web that many, if not most, people prefer other means of contact. Though services such as Gmail have gone a long way to making email more fun and usable, many still can not wait until the service falls into obsolescence.

The second possibility is that another service, much like email, will rise to make such communication easy again. With social networks trying to open up their doors more and even interact with one another there could come a time when one sends a private message to another user from their native account, even if they are on two different services. Though the result would be extremely email-like in nature, it would fit more comfortably with the social networking scheme that is developing.

However, neither of these things are likely soon and neither would help deal with spammers or others that don’t wish to be found, but it could help with bloggers and others that have a sincere interest in doing the right thing.

Conclusions

It is strange to think that, in this age of near-instant communication with anyone, anywhere, that we are finding it harder and harder to reach out privately to strangers we have an issue with. However, this is exactly the case.

The implications of this problem go far beyond just copyright and plagiarism issues. It is something of a great social experiment where we seem to resolve almost all of our disagreements in the most public of the public spheres and the results have not been that impressive.

If there is one thing that I would change about the Internet, it would be this rush to air grievances out in publicly, to attack others publicly while hiding behind a veil of anonymity and forget that there are people at the other end of every communication we send out.

It’s a tall order, but I do think it would make the Web a better place.

There are specifically three changes worth noting:

1. New Page Order: I’ve gone through all of the pages and reordered them, basically moving “Press” and “Contact” to the end of the line. This groups the related pages, “DMCA Contacts“, “Stock Letters” and “Stopping Internet Plagiarism” together in the list. Hopefully this will make the list overall easier to navigate, though it might be confusing to those used to the old layout.
2. New “Other Sites” Page: I’ve added a brand new page under the “About” heading that links to all of the other pages and sites that host content related to this site including the other blogs, microblogs and social networks. It was an attempt to unify all of the different “announcement” posts I’ve made over the past few years.
3. Removed “Host Report”: The Host Report page had not been updated in far too long so I have unpublished it for right now. I plan on reintroducing it soon as something completely different but that project is likely a months off.

It is important to note that, other than the Host Report, everything is still there. I’m sorry for the shuffle but I wanted to make things easier on new readers and may make more adjustments based upon feedback I get.

Thank you for your feedback and your understanding, please keep the suggestions coming!

When I first started dealing with plagiarists in 2001, the problem was primarily on message boards and forums. This made sense. Forums were the most popular means of socialization at the time and they were by far the easiest way for someone with limited Web experience to publish content.

So, even though I regularly ran across a personal home page or even a blog that had plagiarized copies of my work, most of my time was spent working with forum admins.

However, over the years that has shifted. Forums are now more of an Internet curiosity than an established meeting place. Social networking is now, quite literally, the hottest thing on the Web and with profile, blogging and image tools built in, they are by far the easiest way to publish a work on the Web.

So, with this trend, plagiarists have also begun to flock to social networks. Of all of the human-made plagiarism of my content I deal with, approximately 75% take place on social networking sites.

However, whenever I say “Social Networking”, I am actually being generous. Nearly 95% of all of my social networking issues, and thus well over half of all of my issues in general, come from one site: Myspace.

This is something that has me very worried.

Rupert Murdoch’s Empire of Social Plagiarism

Sadly, I am not alone in my issues with Myspace. Nearly every author I have asked about their plagiarism problems have put Myspace either at or near the top of their list. This is especially true for anyone who writes poetry, short stories or other creative works that might appeal to Myspace users.

The only group that doesn’t seem to put Myspace at the top of their list is fan fiction authors. They are one of the few groups that still see the worst issue with forums and community sites. However, fan fiction plagiarism creates a whole new set of problems beyond the scope of this article.

The Myspace issue isn’t limited to writers either. Ask any artist or photographer where they see the most unwanted copying, they’ll usually mention Photobucket. Photobucket, however, is owned by Fox Corp., which also owns Myspace, and the two sites are closely linked. In fact, much of Photobucket’s initial popularity, before it was bought out, was derived from Myspace users wanting to host images and videos in their profiles.

But while it makes sense that the largest social networking site and the largest photo sharing site would attract the largest number of plagiarists, these sites see copyright infringement way out of proportion to their numbers. Where Myspace may be a little bit ahead of Facebook, I see hundreds of cases of plagiarism the former with almost none on the latter.

The question becomes “Why is that true?” and “What can be done about it?”

Copy and Paste Haven

To see the problem first hand, all you have to do is either browse around a few Myspace profiles or visit Photobucket’s home page. Though many people use these sites to post legitimate content, the majority seems to have performed at least one act of likely copyright infringement.

The problem is so serious that scripts have been developed exclusively to detect image copying on Photobucket (more on this script later) and it seems that you can’t go anywhere on Myspace or Photobucket without encountering likely infringements.

Users of these sites are content hungry. They need text, images, video and audio to complete their profiles. On one hand, this has created a whole cottage industry around providing licensed content for Myspace, including profile layouts. On the other, it has lead to a copy and paste culture that can be very dangerous.

Though plagiarism and copyright infringement takes place everywhere, in my experience, the number of likely infringements on Myspace profiles dwarf those on Facebook. Why this is seemingly true is complicated, but there are five potential reasons I see for it.

1. Public Profiles: Myspace profiles are, for the most part, visible to general public. This not only makes it easier to find infringements, thus increasing the number found, but adds motivation for people to beef up their profiles, sometimes motivating people to take content that is not theirs. I see a similar trend on dating sites that have public profiles.
2. Younger Audience: Most of the plagiarists I deal with on Myspace are under the age of 25. Myspace seems to cater to a younger audience and, for whatever reason, they seem more prone to abusing copy and paste on the Web.
3. Low Expectation of Originality: In a way, it is hard to call much of the content use on Myspace plagiarism. There is a very low expectation of originality on the site as most people recognize that the images and other profile touches came from somewhere else, attributed or not. This is less true with the blogs and profile information sections, but it is clear that most Myspace users don’t expect fellow members to create every element of their profile.
4. Permissive Takedown System: Though Fox responds quickly to all DMCA notices and removes infringing works, it is very slow to ban users. I have seen many cases where a Myspace user has lifted ten or more works and Myspace simply removed the infringing work without deleting the user as a repeat infringer.
5. High Degree of Customization: Myspace, unlike many other networks, allows users to edit almost every aspect of their profile’s look and feel, leading to far more opportunities for abuse.

All in all, the reason Myspace is such a haven for plagiarists is not a simple question to answer, but rather, there seems to be a combination of factors contributing to the problem.

Fixing it, however, is going to be even more difficult.

Solving the Problem

Myspace, as a site presents several critical challenges for writers and artists.

First, there is almost no way to contact the infringer directly unless you already have a Myspace account and can send them a message. However, such messages are a risky way to resolve copyright disputes as the paper trail is very limited.

Second, as mentioned above, Myspace does respond well to DMCA notices but rarely takes action against heavily infringing users. This can make it difficult to handle any infringer that has taken many different works.

Finally, the nature of Myspace is one where works posted are passed around almost immediately. It is something of an enclosed ecosystem where a poem, an image or an article will enter into the environment and then travel throughout the service, often carrying dozens of different names.

Overcoming this will not be easy and there is no way that a single Webmaster or copyright holder can do so. It is going to take a concerted effort to change both the culture of Myspace and the approach of its parent company.

The best advice I can give right now is to be aggressive when dealing with infringements on Photobucket and Myspace. Actively seek out infringements on the sites and report them quickly. Once image search tools allow users to detect infringements on Photobucket, use those tools as well and aggressively demand removal.

The goal is two fold. First, motivate Fox to create a more efficient and usable copyright system and the second is to change the culture of these sites. Currently, on YouTube, there is a great deal of infringement but users, for the most part, expect any likely infringing video to be pulled down. As a result, those who care about their YouTube account are careful not to post such videos and the most successful YouTube users feature original content.

The goal is not to eliminate copyright infringement on the site, that will never happen, but create an ecosystem that encourages creativity and rewards originality. The difference in such a system is obvious when one looks at a site such as Flickr and then goes to visit Photobucket.

Conclusions

The sad truth is that there is very little that we can do from the outside to help shape the type of site Myspace is to become. In addition to its large size and strong, if at times annoying, culture, there seems to be a lot of foot dragging on Fox’s end.

But what is frustrating about this problem is just that infringement seems to be so rampant on these sites, but that legitimate users of them seem to share the burden.

There is a reason why Myspace is not taken as seriously as Facebook or Photobucket as seriously as Flickr and the issue of copyright infringement is a big part of the equation.

This is most unfortunate not just for the artists and writers that have their work misused, but those that use those sites and try to do good things with it. Their reputations are tarnished by association.

Fortunately, most of those who use or did use those sites for the purpose of displaying their own work have at least established presences elsewhere.

If one wants to be taken seriously, it is clear that Myspace nor Photobucket is the place to do it.

I’ve been working to reconnect with both old friends and current colleagues. If you’ve emailed me over the past few years, there’s a decent chance that I’ve already sent out a friend request.

However, I am eager to hear from those I might have missed as well as anyone who has not contacted me but is interested in connecting with me.

In that interest, I’ve also created a blog page for Plagiarism Today.

I am admittedly unsure what long-term use I will have for Facebook in regards to this site. My hope is that it will be a new way for me to communicate with others, meet new people who might be interested in the site and help those in need.

On that note, I’m looking for any advice or suggestions to help make this possible. Please bear in mind that I am still very new to Facebook so, quite literally, no suggestion is too basic.

Thank you in advance for all of your help and I look forward to seeing you online!

My Personal Page
Plagiarism Today’s Blog Page

With that in mind, I’ve created a new Twitter account, username plagiarismtoday, and have started to set things up. I have not added the links to the navigation of this site nor any integration tools though both are in the works. I’ve also only posted one tweet so far. But if anyone is interested in helping me get a head start there, feel free to add me.

I’d love to hear from you and I look forward to seeing what suggestions and thoughts others on the site come up with!

The cease and desist letter is the obvious way to handle plagiarism and content theft matters face to face. However, in a recent article on the Blog Herald, I lamented the decreasing effectiveness of cease and desist letters. I’ve expressed similar concerns on this site and the trend only seems to be accelerating.

The reason for the near-death of the cease and desist, and along with it the face-to-face resolution for plagiarism matters, is not a simple one. Rather, the downfall has been brought on by a variety of circumstances that have combined to create a near perfect storm to push the cease and desist to the dusty corner of the Webmaster’s copyright toolbox.

Sadly, it appears that those forces are not prepared to abate any time soon and that, quite soon, the more personal methods of resolving copyright disputes could become a thing of the past.

The Changing Face of Plagiarism

In the early days of the Web, plagiarism was predominantly a personal matter. People stole content from others in order to impress their friends or improve their image online.

Though that problem is still ongoing, plagiarism has also become a business model. A small number of very prolific scrapers have seized upon copyright infringement not as a means of impressing their friends and neighbors, but as a way of making money.

The problem with this business model is that it requires a large quantity of material. That is only possible through automated means such as RSS scraping or content generation and it results in millions of junk pages, much of them filled with content from other sites.

In these situations, locating the plagiarist may be all but impossible and, even if he can be found, he is unlikely to be motivated to shut down just one of his thousands of sites simply because someone asked.

This business model makes it ineffective time-wise for a copyright holder to seek out the person behind the infringing sites to complain. They are much better off skipping straight to faster and more reliable methods of cessation.

Though it is sad and frustrating, a less civil form of plagiarism calls for a less civil method of dealing with it.

The Effect of the Walled Garden

As I pointed out in my original article on Plagiarism Today, even if the plagiarist is a human and not an automated bot, it may still be difficult to get in contact with them.

With the prevalence of social networking sites, which often hide email information in favor of internal messaging, there can be a great amount of difficulty in contacting the person reusing the work unless A) One is a member of the site and B) One is willing to send such an important letter via a means that does not have any verification.

Most people are not willing to register for a site simply to confront a plagiarist, especially considering that the plagiarist may not respond and that the method of contact is dubious at best. Filing a DMCA notice, on the other hand, requires no membership, can be done through email (on most sites) and is consistently effective.

Thus, it is a strange side effect of the “walled gardens” created by these social network sites that cause copyright holders to turn away from cease and desist letters. If one is outside the wall, it is much easier, and more effective, to reach the admins of the site and to enter the garden and try to handle things face to face.

In short, when you close the garden gate, you protect the plagiarist as well as the legitimate user.

How the RIAA is Destroying Copyright

Finally, though the average layperson understands very little about copyright law, as attested to by the amount of misinformation circulating the Web, copyright is more in the news than ever.

This is largely due to the efforts of the RIAA and the MPAA to stamp out file sharing. Those lawsuits, which have been roundly condemned and remain extremely unpopular, have turned many against copyright law itself. In the minds of some, copyright is nothing more than a tool used by large corporations to quash users.

Thus, any mention of copyright law or enforcing copyrights is likely to be met with hostility. No matter how in the wrong they are, a plagiarist might stand up and fight on principle, perhaps even turning a private disagreement into a very public drama.

This attitude has been bolstered by recent victories against the RIAA and a general understanding at the difficulties faced by small rightsholders if they look to sue a Webmaster that may be in another country.

Where once there was a certain amount of civility and honor in these matters, now even plagiarism is not as despicable, in some circles, as the word copyright. It is a disturbing trend, but not one that is likely to go away any time soon.

Conclusions

As both attitudes on the Web and the structure of the Web itself has changed, so has the means for handling plagiarism. Though we are better connected than ever to each other, those connections seem less and less personal.

It is almost as if that the Web has changed from a small town, with less law enforcement and more personal interaction, into a metropolis where the police play a larger role in law enforcement and we don’t know our known neighbors.

Sure, we have our social circles and our networking opportunities, but between the bots, walled gardens and hidden information, the idea of reaching out and contacting a complete stranger, much less resolving an issue with one, seems more foreign than it did just a few years ago.

The Web has changed, in some ways for the better, in some ways for the worse, and with those changed comes the death of the cease and desist letter. It is a minor change in the large scheme of things, that much is certain, but still one rightsholders and Webmasters need to note.

For it will have a drastic impact on how we handle plagiarism on into the future and it may very well change the nature of copyright for decades to come.